The poppies are out! The poppies are out! For one week they explode then disappear.

So I was part of a James Joyce reading...We rehearsed...and people fluttered...and the signal was given and we began...

And there was silence...the man at the end of the table did not give his line...the whole table looked down in his direction and still he said nothing. He is a very fine actor but I think the fluttering had got to him...I couldn't believe what was happening...Wasn't anyone going to rescue him...and I couldn't bare the silence and the staring. He was a proverbial deer in the headlights. So...I changed voices and read his lines. From then on he was there...
What amused me or puzzled me was I'm not too sure if anyone realized I'd read his lines. There were six other readers. No one looked in my direction...I do not know to this day whether they were approving or censuring! Why did you read his line?
But it took me back to my first day in class at the University of Edinburgh. I arrived late and tucked into the back of the room. The professor asked a question. There was silence...and more silence...as he waited...and finally I could stand it no longer. I gave the three word obvious answer: Man has soul.

All the heads turned and for the first time in my life I understood what it meant to be a foreigner...they were not impressed.

The professor smiled and said: Ah a breath of fresh air from America!

The class sighed.

In Edinburgh such questions are rhetorical.

Three months later one of the students finally spoke to me. What part of the States are you from?
And I laughed and replied: Canada...
I had so many invitations for tea after that....